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Comment by Khaki | Hacker News Reader

Seems to be an article filled with nothing but hype. It doesn't even define what a random matrix is. I had to first check on Wikipedia to work out that this theory 'probably' has something to do with Wigner's law and symmetric matrices.

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I'm afraid that's what almost all New Scientist articles are.

I agree, I think SciAm has much better Pop Sci articles, at least the original authors of the paper write their articles.

And for the next step up in Pop Sci articles, AmSci is a good choice, imho.

From the article, it seems like I could just fill in a grid with random numbers, wave my hands, and then divine the secrets of nature by reading it as tea leaves. What an awful article.

Also: ...has computed the locations of as many as 10^23 zeros of the Riemann zeta function and found a near-perfect agreement with random matrix theory.

I think that when you're talking about mathematics, "near-perfect agreement" is synonymous with "not in agreement".

I'm really surprised at the negative reaction to this article! For what it's worth here's a great (much more mathematically sophisticated) article on this topic (that is nonetheless still quite speculative in its tone)

http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~cgates/PERSI/papers/eigen.pdf

In defence of new scientist, their articles are designed to give the average person an overview of the latest scientific research, without expecting pior knowledge in the field. They're not for a technical audience wishing to apply the ideas involved.

I find them really useful for staying up-to-date on a broad range of topics from which I can jump into further research if I find them interesting.

My objection is that if you run s/random matrix)/magic/g on that article, it is not significantly degraded. I hate most arguments based on "rewriting the original post", so let me be clear that my objection is that the actual information content on the technique itself is not merely low, it is nearly zero. I question the utility of writing an article like this when they clearly don't expect the audience to have even a high-school understanding of matrices. (I mean, the one bone they toss to "what is a matrix?" isn't even correct; matrices aren't necessarily "square"! And again, I reiterate, this is something learned in high school.)

I'm all for a magazine which, as you described, is "designed to give the average person an overview of the latest scientific research, without expecting pior knowledge in the field". But it could be done without sensationalising everything quite as much as New Scientist feels the need to do.

Frinstance, New Scientis starts an article on the fairly prosaic subject of random matrix theory with this paragraph:

"SUPPOSE we had a theory that could explain everything. Not just atoms and quarks but aspects of our everyday lives too. Sound impossible? Perhaps not."

The problem is they delve too far into the fuzzy and misleading terms without a solid explanation. This is where things like 'The God particle' come from. "Average peope"[1] do not think in strictly defined an limited terms, the associate based on multiple meanings words have. They also allow certain connotations to evoke emotional responses. Of course being too clear evokes responses about patronizing... sigh.

[1] Average people being defined as those without strong scientific training, and therefore more likely to make inferences that may not be reasonable.

Still, an article about random matricies and the Riemann hypothesis should not need to explain what a prime number is. I found that more insulting that the lack of any real information.

that's a bit harsh. I found the article genuinely interesting, even if very light on the details.

A pop-sci article that contains less hype is Brian Hayes' The Spectrum of Riemannium:

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/the-spectrum-of...

If you want to learn the actual math of random matrices, Terry Tao's notes are a good start:

http://terrytao.wordpress.com/category/teaching/254a-random-...

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